Today’s post is brought to you by Eline Millenaar, the inspirational heart behind Beautiful Dreamer. Be stirred, challenged, and encouraged as Eline M. shares her heart on beauty.
“Put that mirror down and start living!” or “Why in the world are you redecorating your house again? Wasn’t it just fine before?”
We have all heard sentences like this over and over again. Design, beauty and decoration are socially connected to the words ineffective, useless and unnecessary. In this ‘men’s world’ we’ve lost our value for beauty and we forgot the importance of it. Generally speaking, men are seeking for productivity, while women are searching for beauty. We are made like this to complement each other, because productivity creates space for beauty and beauty stimulates productivity. Unfortunately, we’ve overestimated productivity at the cost of beauty. Even beauty has to have a purpose and I would like to propose that beauty in itself is a purpose.
Beauty reflects the feminine side of the heart of God. Please look up from your computer screen and look outside your window for a second. Do you see the trees, clouds, the sun? Or if the world outside is dark, look at the image of your face which the dark glass reflects. Imagine what the world would look like if God decided to make His creation only effective and productive and completely leave out the aspect of beauty. Thankfully He didn’t, because beauty echos His glory. I once saw a little glimpse of His glory. The only way I can describe it as is an explosion of colors and sounds, movements and lights. It’s beautiful beyond understanding. That very glorious Presence of God can be found in the beauty of creation, that includes you!
Paul Manwaring said it like this: “Beauty is an aspect of Gods glory which attracts the soul and rises up a desire to respond to it.” You want to capture beauty, hold it or absorb as much of it as you can. How that looks, your response to beauty, is different for everybody. Paul gave the example of a mountain. What do you see when you see a beautiful mountain? Do you want to photograph it, climb it, write about it, or study it? The way you respond to beauty reveals a lot about your personality. Even more, what you consider as beautiful says a lot about your identity. Beauty is both an expression and an indicator of identity.
I’m falling in love with beauty time after time again. I inhale beauty to exhale art. In this breathing of my artist’s heart, I can’t do anything else but be amazed by the beauty around me. My heart breaks when I see people hurrying and running around, without ever taking the time to look around, look up and look inside. You miss the benefits of something you don’t know the value of. Please know you have full permission to search after beauty, enjoy beauty, get lost in it and create it. Church, you’re called to be Jesus’ beautiful Bride. He has given you the most beautiful wedding dress, but you gave it away. You thought beauty was vain, when you are actually glorifying Him when you’re walking down the aisle in the most beautiful dress. Let the Church become the forerunner again in art, beauty and style! It’s time we see the world and her people as masterpieces and give beauty the value she deserves.
TheReddingProject 